It is known to provide an interior trim panel for a vehicle, and components thereof, which is aesthetically and/or tactilely pleasing to the vehicle occupants. Such trim panels commonly have cushioned soft-touch aesthetic features. In particular, interior vehicle door panels often have localized cushioned areas in the armrest. Such localized softness may be provided by a flexible foam or elastomeric pad of varying thickness typically mounted to a rigid structural substrate and surrounded by a relatively harder durometer cover sheet.
It is also known to form vehicle armrests by placing a nibbed back surface of a molded vinyl skin against a rigid structural substrate and clamping the vinyl skin to the underside of the substrate with a closure plate. However, such known methods of manufacturing vehicle armrests typically require a series of multiple and separate molding and assembly steps which can add significant cost to each part produced. It would therefore be desirable to provide an improved method of manufacturing an armrest for a vehicle.